free skies
by mew-tsubaki
Summary: M&MWP, oneshot, femslash. "You still like your Quidditch players?" "Yeah. You still play Quidditch?" "Maybe, if the world doesn't end." -—Demelza and Romilda, as their world shrinks to that of the Room of Requirement.


**free skies**

A HariPo oneshot

by mew-tsubaki

Note: The _Harry Potter_ characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. This pairing is a **Mew and Mor's Weird Pairing**, which you may find in the **M&MWP forum** (see my profile for details). Check out and join the forum FUN! Read, review, and enjoy!

\- ^-^3

The holiday break was long behind them, but no one was feeling very generous these days. Feeling lucky, perhaps, because several more students had gifted themselves freedom, had run into the open arms of the reconstituted Dumbledore's Army.

But Demelza wasn't certain for how much longer the Room of Requirement could conceal, could contain the lot of them. Surely there had to be _some_ limit on the extent of its magic?

That thought niggled at her from her spot on a maroon beanbag chair—already worn through in spots from overuse these past few months—where she could scan the room and take inventory of the faces she saw. But these days red and blue and yellow blended together, and one saw shades of gray more often than not. Classmates and schoolmates were now friends, and friends were now siblings or more.

…at the same time, the lack of privacy was becoming a larger issue, and even now Demelza got to her feet and scurried over to one of the windowsills, which thankfully was vacant for once.

Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she noted with a frown that Ginny hadn't paused in the slightest talking with the Frobisher twins. Of course Demelza was friends with them, too, but they'd just arrived two days ago after Vicky had shot her mouth off to Amycus and had narrowly avoided punishment by playing the "but, sir, I'm not Vicky, I'm Lizzy" game with Lizzy. Identical twins had it made right now, although they were both lucky not to have served any punishment together.

"Chocolate?"

Demelza jolted, perhaps an overreaction, at the sound of Romilda's voice. She turned a bit as Romilda entered her line of sight. "Did you say 'chocolate'?"

The dark-haired witch nodded, her right cheek full. She offered a square box to Demelza. "Goodies from Aberforth. Lotsa Dementors clinging to the castle like a big, black blanket. Several of the older students are spent, casting the Patronus Charm. The rest of us…" Romilda's jaunty, casual smile faded. "Well, even if only for a few seconds, it's not fun, getting zapped."

"Godric!" Demelza didn't even know why she bothered to exclaim anymore. So many things seemed a go at Hogwarts these days that few things surprised her. If someone next were to inform her that the first years would be lining up to be mauled by Greyback, she might believe it without much scrutiny.

Romilda held the box closer to Demelza's face. The scent of the candy wafted towards her nose.

"…just one, then," she caved.

Like that, Romilda's smile returned. The younger girl ate another chocolate herself, licking her fingers before passing the box off to a Hufflepuff girl whose name Demelza didn't know but whose face she recognized because she'd come here the week before.

"I recall when Dementors entering the grounds was enough to get the faculty to act," Demelza thought aloud. She faced the window again and unwrapped her chocolate, biting it in half instead of inhaling it the way Romilda did.

Romilda nodded and clamped her hands behind her back. She scrunched her shoulders up. "That was _awful_," she agreed. "Some first year that was."

"It wasn't much better, being a second year," Demelza remarked. She raised her auburn eyebrows.

"You say that as if the difference matters much. Like which twin is born first. Doesn't really matter."

"'Three minutes ahead of the game,'" Demelza quipped.

"What's that mean?"

She caught Romilda's eye and jerked her head behind her. "Vicky. She teases Lizzy about that when she wants to have her say and get her way. I've been surrounded by that mentality for six years." Thinking back on those instances, Demelza finally felt the urge to smile herself. How strange, being amused after all this time.

Romilda said nothing, though, out of the corner of her eye, Demelza could've sworn she caught a catlike glint in her dark eyes, akin to "So you _do_ still remember how to smile."

That made Demelza roll her eyes.

Not that they'd been complete strangers before, in Gryffindor Tower, but Romilda had changed a lot in her hellish fifth year, befriending others and being choosy about those to whom she grew closest. She was a far cry from the girl the whole school knew had tried to nab Harry with a Love Potion, but that was allowed. They were all allowed to grow and shed their past in these darkest and direst of times.

And yet…

"Careful about wrinkling your jumper," Romilda said. She tugged on Demelza's right arm. "We don't have the castle's entire range of magic open to us right now. Laundry's far down on the to-do list." Romilda pinched her nose for added effect.

But Demelza sighed. "I don't care about wrinkled jumpers or walking around in pajamas." With a wave of her hand, she pinched at the fabric of her crimson plaid bottoms.

"What's got you crossing your arms, then?"

"That." She motioned with her chin towards the window.

"…the window?"

"Outside. _Outdoors_."

Romilda paused. "Oh."

Demelza frowned and tugged her hair free of its usual plait. It didn't feel right even to have her hair drawn back, because she wasn't going to be out _there_ anytime soon.

Out on the grounds.

Outside the castle.

Out there, in the open sky, living amongst the clouds.

It was good to have her hair tie rolling between her fingers. Her fingers itched to reach for a broom, any broom, just so she could feel the wind lick her cheeks…but she was stuck indoors, surrounded by nothing more than stagnant, stale air.

"You miss Quidditch," Romilda observed.

"No," Demelza grumbled. "I miss flying." _I miss freedom_, she mentally added.

Romilda sighed, and she reached for Demelza's hair, an action which took a moment to register as Romilda began taking tiny sections and plaiting them. "You'll be back out there, someday. Honest, Demelza."

Demelza sighed, too, but more in embarrassment. To be comforted by someone younger…! But it was a relief to vent to someone, not have to silence herself while someone else…say, Ginny…took over and kept them focused on the battles at hand. Plus, having Romilda's hands in her hair felt quite nice. She faced the other witch to thank her.

But Romilda's face was quite close as she zoomed in on her work. So when she picked up her eyes, their faces were only two fingers away. It was hard not to look each other in the eye.

Odd. Demelza had been bemoaning before the fullness of the Room of Requirement. But somehow Romilda entering her personal bubble of space made her skin warm all the same, as if they were the only two people around.

"Ooh, hey."

"What." It sounded less like a question, more like snapping. Demelza wanted to bury herself in the castle stones just for that.

Romilda smiled and chuckled, and her breath was warm in Demelza's hair. "I never noticed before! I've only ever caught you at the odd angle. Both your cheeks are dimpled. How cute!"

Demelza wanted to roll her eyes again or retort. Instead— "You've got a smattering of freckles from cheek to cheek." Wow. Way to point out the obvious, Robins.

Romilda's grin was near wolfish now, and it put Demelza in mind of last year when the girl had her sights set on Harry. "That's the type of thing you can't notice when you've got your head literally up in the clouds, you know."

Cheeky! She really was being cheeky. And Demelza couldn't quite figure what to make of that. She turned her head away, letting Romilda continue with her hair. After half a beat and with her brain absent, she asked quietly, "You still like your Quidditch players?"

"Yeah. You still play Quidditch?"

It wasn't flirting. This wasn't flirting. It _couldn't_ be flirting. Demelza wouldn't know flirting if it were a Bludger and came and broke her bloody nose! And yet, Demelza found it in her to be a bit cheeky right back. She glanced at Romilda with half a smile. "Maybe," she replied, "if the world doesn't end."

Romilda paused in her handiwork to rest her arms on Demelza's shoulder then, leaning her chin on her clasped hands, closing much of the distance between them once again. Her eyes darted down and to the right, perhaps distracted by a dimple, and a softer smile bloomed on her lips. She gave Demelza's shoulder a squeeze. "Then let's get you back to those free skies once more."

Demelza nodded. That'd be lovely, of course…

…except now she was thinking of adding a passenger on the back of her broom….

\- ^-^3

**WELL! I've been having some more HariPo ideas lately despite giving my other fandoms a lot of love (*cough* **_**NCIS**_** *cough*), and I'm finally starting to write them! Mostly because writing more drabbles for the collection, **_**you're nobody until somebody loves you**_**, has gotten the creative juices flowing more easily. This was a cute idea that rly morphed from smthg so incredibly angsty, tho? I will always love minor charries, and I think Demelza's actress in the movies is such a cutie, so I had fun writing Romilda enjoying the view here. XD The heaviness of DH aside, Demelza has some good points. But also, it didn't occur me until after I was done: Knowing what happened the year before, Demelza **_**still**_** thought it safe to accept free chocolates from Romilda Vane?! *LOL* Anyway, I can see this being cute bc Demi's a bit of a stick in the mud and Romy gets her to loosen up. AHHH, I need more Demiromy now. ;w;**

**Thanks for reading, and please review!**

**-mew-tsubaki :3c**


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